Inside Trump’s Cutthroat Conquest of Iowa and New Hampshire

Donald J. Trump’s campaign couldn’t have scripted the results in Iowa any better.

Except for a single vote.

Standing backstage at his victory party in downtown Des Moines, Mr. Trump appeared almost giddy with disbelief as television screens blared the news of an outcome so lopsided it was called while the voting was still underway. He had won more than 50 percent of the vote — and 98 of the state’s 99 counties — and his rivals, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, were clustered together far behind. Mr. DeSantis edged just ahead of Ms. Haley, enough to stall her momentum but not enough to save his candidacy.

“Did you think it was going to be like this?” Mr. Trump remarked to an adviser, according to two people who witnessed the interaction.

That night, the former president and his usual coterie of top aides were joined by about a dozen Iowa staffers headed for New York, boarding the plane his campaign calls Trump Force One.

Not everyone was invited. Mr. Trump had lost Johnson County, home of the University of Iowa, by a single vote. The regional political director who had overseen the area was not given a seat on the plane. The next morning, according to two people familiar with the matter, she was informed by a terse email from her supervisor that her contract with the Trump campaign was not being renewed.

It was the type of ruthlessness the Trump team had deployed in the prior 14 months: Win — or else. The approach has fit the requirements of a candidate who faces the threat of imprisonment if impending trials and the 2024 presidential race do not go his way.

On Tuesday, Mr. Trump beat Ms. Haley by 11 percentage points in New Hampshire, the early state where she had not long ago seemed best situated to score an upset win.His